262 



XHE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



queen-cells, all of which I destroyed, 

 or supposed I did ; I examined tiiein 

 af?ain in a week or ten days, but 

 found no new cells, and was not 

 aware that in a sly corner was one 

 just about hatching, of the original 

 ones which had escaped my notice. It 

 so hajjpened that I did not look into 

 this hive again for two weeksor more, 

 when, there I found a young, fertile 

 laying queen, wings, legs and all. I 

 looked around, and upon another 

 frame found No. 1 minus foot and 

 wings. There they were, both in the 

 hive, and no mistake. 1 was a little 

 puzzled ; looked around and found the 



glace where the cell had been, which 

 ad escaped me, when I was destroy- 

 ing the others. At first thought, I 

 had supposed No. 2 had been but re- 

 cently hatched, and that the two royal 

 rivals had not yet met. But, no ; the 

 young queen was evidently fertile and 

 laying, as I afterwards proved. To 

 test matters, however, and look 

 further into the problem, I closed the 

 liive until the next day, when I ex- 

 amined it again. I still found both 

 queens there on different frames. No. 

 1, with wings and leg off, seemed, 

 however, to be neglected, and I no- 

 ticed a slight diminution in the size of 

 her abdomen. 



My theory, whether right or wrong, 

 was this : The workers, being cog- 

 nizant of her deformity, were super- 

 seding her. They were nourishing 

 the young and perfectqueen, and neg- 

 lecting the deformed one, and, hence, 

 she had ceased laying. But this un- 

 gracious business did not happen to 

 agree with my notions of entomologi- 

 cal ethics, and I accordingly put a 

 stop to it. Besides, barring the de- 

 formity of No. 1, she was a fine, hand- 

 some queen, and very prolific. I ac- 

 cordingly took out No. 2, clipped her 

 wings, and put her in another place 

 where she was needed, and left No. 

 1 to " hold the fort." The usurper 

 being gone, and the bees finding that 

 fact out, turned their attention to 

 their riglitf ul mother, and nourished 

 her as she deserved. All went well, 

 and she is now safely away with her 

 colony in winter quarters, as also the 

 other. Now, whatever may have been 

 the experience of others in this direc- 

 tion, the fact of two fertile queens oc- 

 cupying the same hive together for 

 some days, was, to me, something al- 

 together unprecedented. 



The winter here (Eastern Ontario) 

 has, so far, been unusually severe, the 

 temperature, frequently dipping much 

 below zero, and we have had continu- 

 ous sleighing nearly three months. 

 As a consequence, some of the old- 

 fashioned bee-keepers, in this section, 

 who leave their bees out during all 

 the winter on the summer stands, 

 without any protection, will, I fear, 

 as Mr. Jones says, be in ' mourning " 

 in the spring. Of course we have 

 some few bee-keepers here in the East 

 who try to keep up with the times 

 and do the business scientifically ; but 

 there is, I believe, a larger proportion 

 of such in Western Ontario, where 

 Mr. D. A. Jones is located, and where 

 his influence in developing apiculture 

 has been much felt, in the past two or 

 three years. Of course every Cana- 



dian bee-keeper is proud of Mr. 

 Jones, wliom I had the pleasure of 

 meeting for the first time in Toronto, 

 last fall, at the Industrial Exhibition, 

 where he had a splendid display of 

 almost everything pertaining to the 

 art of apiculture. I was very favor- 

 ably impressed with the genuinely 

 progressive and cosmopolitan spirit 

 of Mr. Jones, who, though having 

 made many inventions and improve- 

 ments in apiarian apparatus, patents 

 notliing, but leaves all free to make 

 from his patterns. This admirable 

 trait is as rare as it is generous. 

 Witliout, evidently, having had many 

 scholastic advantages, Mr. Jones has, 

 by his native ability, genius and in- 

 dustry, placed himself in the very 

 first I'ank of eminent apiarists, and 

 has shown more enterprise in the 

 business than any of his compeers. 



In the eastern part of the Province 

 here, we have recently lost one of our 

 best and most enthusiastic bee-keep- 

 ers. I refer to Hon. Lewis Wall- 

 bridge, of Belleville, who has lately 

 been elevated to the cliief justiceship 

 of the new Province of Manitoba. 

 Mr. Wallbridge was president, last 

 year, of the Ontario Bee-Keepers' As- 

 sociation, and was a very enthusiastic 

 amateur bee-keeper. I fear, however, 

 that he will not be able to enjoy his 

 favorite recreation in the Northwest, 

 as the climate, I understand, is too 

 severe for what he used to call his 

 " little pets," the bees. If these 

 "little pets" failed to let him feel 

 their stings once in a while, he said 

 he felt " neglected." Most people 

 would prefer to suffer that kind of 

 neglect, but not so with the redoubt- 

 able Lewis. In the East here we 

 have anotlier very good bee-keeper, 

 Mr. Wm. 0. Wells, of Thurlow, Hast- 

 ings County. Mr. W. is quite a genus 

 in his way, he makes nearly every- 

 thing he wants in the bee line for 

 himself, even to making foundation 

 comb. 



Lennox Co., Ont. 



For tlie American B\iO Journal. 



Extracted Honey and Extracting. 



FAYETTE LEE. 



In my last article I described my 

 plan for getting bees ready for the 

 honey harvest, and that comes about 

 July 6. Last year basswood bloomed 

 on July 19. The bees need all the 

 honey from dandelions to rear their 

 brood. Y^ou may see the comb begin 

 to look wliite, and in a few days it 

 will be all capped over ; but let it 

 stand in the hive until June 2.5, then 

 get the honey extractor ready and a 

 sweet barrel, well waxed, to put the 

 first honey in ; this done, you need a 

 good smoker, screw driver, and a tur- 

 key wing. Take the comb basket 

 and stool to put the upper story on, 

 and commence at hive No. 1, put the 

 screw-driver between two frames and 

 pry them apart, smoking the bees at 

 the same time ; put the upper story 

 on the stool, take out four of the out- 

 side frames, put them in the comb 

 basket, and fill up tlie brood-nest with 

 frames of foundation. Put back the 



upper story and take out every frame 

 and extract them and return them to 

 the hive. Now, we have four spare 

 frames. Go to No. 2 and take off the 

 top story, as before, take out four 

 frames and put in the extra four, and 

 put on the upper one again and ex- 

 tract the same as No. 1. We take out 

 all the dark honey, so that it will not 

 get mixed with the basswood honey. 

 Do not stop to strain the honey. Put 

 it in a 40 gallon barrel and let it stand 

 a few days, when all the small cap- 

 pings will be on the top. Then skim 

 it and cover it with sheeting. By all 

 means keep each kind of honey by 

 itself. 



My honey weighs 113^ pounds to the 

 gallon. It is a disgrace to a bee- 

 keeper to have honey sour. The cause 

 of its souring, is that it was extracted 

 before it was ripe. When it is capped, 

 it is ripe, and the bees put their seal 

 on it. If you want to spoil the sale 

 of extracted honey, sell your store 

 keepers unripe honey, and you will do 

 it the first time. It is riot the big 

 yield we want, but good honey. We 

 keep this first honey till September to 

 feed, if we need it. My honey in 

 June is dark in color, sometimes. 

 Goldenrod does not give much honey, 

 and we want this to feed the bees. 



Having taken all the dark honey 

 out on June 25, the next yield will be 

 from the basswood. Wait about four 

 days from the time the flrst basswood 

 honey comes in, then open all of the 

 top stories, and put the outside frames 

 in towards the centre, and close up 

 the hives. In this way I get all the 

 frames full about the same time, so 

 that I can extract it all at once. In 

 about four days more, the bees will 

 have it capped over. Now we are 

 ready to take the first basswood 

 honey. We will commence at No. 1, 

 and extract four frames from the 

 brood-nest, and all from the upper 

 story. Be sure to take the outside 

 frames in the brood-nest. I only ex- 

 tract two times during the basswood 

 harvest. Now being through ex- 

 tracting for a while, put the honey in 

 tin cans and glass jars for market, and 

 label it " puue honey," giving your 

 name on every can and jar, that you 

 have. I believe every bee-keeper has 

 a riglit to set a price on his honey ; if 

 every one would do so, it would be 

 mucii better for them. 



I have been in the bee business for 

 six years, and have sold H,757 pounds 

 of honey, and put my own price on it, 

 and it averaged 11 cents a pound. 



In producing extracted honey we 

 have surplus combs to use from the 

 last year, and bees will store honey 

 when they will not make comb. One 

 year I tried tiering up, with a few 

 hives, and did not extract until the 

 honey harvest was over. I found that 

 the bees had not capped the honey, 

 for they had too much surface room 

 to cover, through August and Sep- 

 tember. 



Do not extract from the brood-nest, 

 but take all they put in the upper 

 story. There may be better ways to 

 manage bees to produce comb honey, 

 but the way I have managed has 

 given me 92 pounds of extracted 

 honey to the colony, spring count. If 



